Ginny Weasley
by ksmathers
Summary: Rowling's description of Harry and Ginny's relationship has always seemed kind of shallow to me, so I wrote this as an exploration of the complex needs and conflicting emotions that comprise adult love. Mostly it is a romance, but it is interwoven with another epic Harry adventure that I hope will please.
1. Chapter 1: Readying Herself For a Date

_Author's Note: At the end of book 7, Rowling gave us a glimpse of what the future might hold for the characters she had created, but without filling in the missing pieces that led up to that future, the pairings that she described always seemed somewhat arbitrary to me. Personal relationships, especially those that lead to romance and marriage, are in my experience much more complex than anything the canonical books depict._

_On top of that canvas I offer this story. Beginning with the initial infatuation Ginny has for Harry, it tries to explore many of the emotional ties that bind marriages together, as well as some of the real-life friction that makes a real relationship quite a bit more difficult than those in fairy tales._

* * *

WITCH WEEKLY [2021W38]

ADVANCE COPY – NOT FOR PUBLICATION

Claire Potter-Estes Memoire: _Growing Up With Mum_

by Gina Skeeter

Listen up girls; I know you have all been just dying to get your hands on the rumored new tell-all memoire from Claire Potter-Estes. Your faithful reporter caught up with Claire at her chateau in Vichy and managed to talk her into giving Witch Weekly exclusive access to this chapter from her new book. Like all of you I had my nose practically glued to the pages of Witch Weekly when the news broke of Harry Potter's sudden marriage to the former Ginny Weasley. Every hedgerow was atwitter with the gossip. Revelations of a year old baby seemed to wrap up all of that speculation with a shiny satin bow. But now, for the first time ever, I give you the nitty-gritty details of how Harry Potter, the wizard who defeated Voldemort and Ginny Weasley, a pretty but penniless witch with impeccably true blood breeding fell in love.

[Millie; could you fact check this for me? I want to run the first part this week, so this is A1 urgent! –XO]

* * *

Readying herself for a date

* * *

Ginny appraised herself critically in the floor length mirror. Good bust; not perfectly symmetrical but not lopsided either, high and pert. She considered removing her blouse and bra but that could wait, right now she wanted to know what she should emphasize when they met again. It was to be the first time she would see Harry Potter again since the aftermath of Voldemort's destruction.

Eyeing herself in profile Ginny was displeased to find that her tummy was no longer perfectly flat. In her mind she scheduled a hard course of morning aerobics. She adjusted her stance slightly, adding a bit of arch to her back, but it was hopeless, her derriere was simply too compact to fill out the seat of her trousers the way she wished it would.

Ginny's mind wandered back to Hogwarts… when she had made a promise to herself:

_"Lift your wand a bit and try again. You want to end the gesture with your arm fully extended and with the tip in a straight line to your target." Harry peered over her shoulder. Their cheeks were almost touching as his long arms reached out and positioned her hand the way he wanted it. "Just like this. You have a good line, but keep your wrist higher."_

_Being so close to Harry filled Ginny's stomach with butterflies, but she clamped down on the nervous impulse and completed the spell again. "Damn. Damn. Damn," she thought. _

_Harry drew back, his breath a whisper against her cheek, which nearly made her turn her head to brush soft lips across his cheek. His left hand remained resting lightly on her shoulder while with his right he touched her spine, adjusting her stance slightly. "Keep at it," he encouraged. "You almost have it. Relax your shoulders. And your back is too tight as well. Take a deep breath and let it go. En garde; prait; allee!"_

_"Crap. You go Harry, I'll work on it while you help the others. I have the basics, I just need to practice." Ginny waited for her heart to stop pounding then took the stance again. Forty minutes later she was hitting the practice dummy on target with every spell. Harry had returned twice, now giving her pointers for improving her firing rate. Setting a goal for herself she thought, "ten spells in ten seconds; if I can to that... I. Get. Ice-cream. And. Cookies."_

_It had been more than an hour since she had begun, and Ginny had become sore in mind and body. "...one more try. If I do that I'll marry Harry." She slipped in the stance that was now second nature. "One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Ungh eight. Ungh nine." And with a mental push that surprised her, Ginny fired her tenth. Nine and a half seconds. She slumped, elated but dripping sweat with the effort. "I did it," she thought dreamily. "We are meant for each other."_

Ginny shook her head to clear the cobwebs. "I was so young and silly." And yet there she was, and she only had to remember him to remember the promise she had made to herself. "Was he teasing me back then? Or was I teasing myself."

She focused on her face, wishing that her lips were fuller. "At least my complexion has cleared." Her face and neck were pale as milk, moonlight skin her mother had called it. It was a side effect of having a desk job at the ministry.

It was a bit disappointing really after the excitement of the war, although to be fair she really did believe in her role in the ministry; finding orphans, and either locating their families, or finding loving homes where they could be placed. It was heart-breaking when she found children who had lost both parents. Often they were locked in their shells of grief and stress, and Ginny would first just spend time with them, hold them, coax them out. Later she would work with stress counselors, obliviators, or whatever the children needed until they were able to be children again. But the greatest reward came when she finally located a grandparent or second cousin who was willing to meet the kids on their own terms and give them the unconditional love they deserved. When that happened it filled Ginny's heart to bursting.

Ginny brushed her hair out in front of the mirror, feeding some of her magic into the Gullinborsti bristles adding depth to the reds while pulling out golden highlights. In the afternoon light her hair began to flow a coppery golden red. When she was done she picked up her wand a quipped a rapid charm that pulled her hair back into a single long braid.

"Why am I setting myself up like this?" she wondered. Ginny unclasped the pin that held her skirt and let it slide to the floor. With firm fingers she unfastened seven mother of pearl buttons down the front of her blouse and let it slide down her arms to the floor as well. Next, reaching behind her back, Ginny pulled down the back of her bra and unclasped the hooks that held it tight. She glanced at herself in the mirror then, her waist thin, her hips and chest describing a pronounced hourglass. She let her bra drop on top of the pile of clothes. Her fingers pulled lacy peach pants over her hips and they too sidled to the floor where she kicked them aside.

"The birth of Venus," she thought as she observed herself in the mirror, blushing as she thought it. The fantasy propelled her sometimes she supposed; to be so beautiful, naked to the world, but so innocent that no pair of watching eyes would change you. Ginny dragged fingernails softly down from her navel through rich curls of red golden hair and touched herself tentatively, trying to imagine what it would feel like for Harry to press fingers into the folds of soft flesh. Her fingers came away moist and Ginny lifted them to her nose examining her musk. She smelled raw and sexual, not floral but animal. With a wolfish grin she pressed her fingers to her neck, just below and behind her ears, first the left, then the right.

Then she simply stood. Ginny pulled herself to her full height examining herself in the mirror. She was pleased to find good muscle tone on her thighs and calves; so she wasn't so badly out of shape after all. She could wear pumps or heels, either would show her to advantage, but she though perhaps she would prefer pumps if she could convince Harry to dance with her. Did Harry dance?

Standing facing the mirror she turned again to profile and critically eyed her belly. From stomach to Venus triangle she saw the same problem she had seen earlier. With fingers probing she decided that it was subcutaneous fat that was causing the problem as much as muscle tone. Her anger flared briefly with the unfairness, why couldn't the fat deposit itself on her backside where she needed it instead on her belly where she didn't? Looking over her shoulder she next tried to see herself as she would look from behind, but even with a hand mirror it was pointless.

"Please give me this," the thought rose unbidden to her mind. "Only Harry, nothing else. Ever."


	2. Chapter 2: Dinner Out

Dinner out

* * *

Harry sat across from Ginny, his mind a muddle of what-ifs. She was stunningly beautiful tonight, not that he hadn't thought of her as love interest before, but tonight there was a sparkle in her eye, a quickness to her smile, a sense of the genuine in her laugh that made him feel unsure of himself.

After Voldemort, Harry had spent weeks with the Weasley clan helping to rebuild the Burrow. Fred's wake had been particularly difficult; in the depth of their grief they all shared their stories, memories of the son, the friend, the twin, and the brother. Such tangible grieving had haunted him for a while. Then Ron and Hermione had decided to get married and had moved off to the states to settle although they never explained why to Harry's satisfaction. Harry on the other hand was bound to Britain. There were just too many things that he owed to the old Kingdom, a debt he counted in lives spent while Harry had tried inadequately to stop Voldemort. His country counted him hero, but in his heart he did not feel like one.

_The wizarding population of Britain is the greatest in the world_, is how the ministry liked to describe itself. Now that Harry was a part of the ministry he knew what that really meant. Population fourteen thousand witches and wizards worldwide, two thirds in the U.K. And there were a little over four thousand fewer now than there had been before the war started. The damage was brutal; fully a third of all magical Britain had been destroyed by the plague that was Voldemort.

After burying Fred it was hard for Harry to be around Molly. She loved him, and even smiled at him, but the depth of her sadness was painful for Harry, especially when he knew that it was entirely his fault. It was his fault for not acting soon enough. It was his fault for not finding a way to stop the slaughter.

So he left, and buried himself in his work. The work of tracking down every last Death Eater and compiling the evidence needed to convict. And the work of coaxing the DMLE to prosecute. In the Aurors offices Harry was widely acknowledged as a one man brigade.

"In four years I've hunted down fifty-two Death Eaters, given the war crimes commission ample evidence to convict every one of them," Harry paused. Ginny had asked him how he had been doing, but he knew he was going over the top. She doesn't want to hear about this, he decided, but neither did he know what else to talk about. "I'm sorry, I am boring you."

"No," said Ginny, "it is very interesting."

Ginny was looking a bit like she had an upset stomach, Harry thought. Why must I always bring everything back to Voldemort? "Well, even so, I'd rather hear about you. My life hasn't had much balance ever, and the last four years underscore that trend. Tell me something beautiful, Ginevra."

Ginny's pulse quickened. Had he ever used her full name before? "I..." what was she going to say? _'I love you, I need you, don't hide yourself away from me_', it was on the tip of her tongue racing through her mind in circles but she couldn't make herself say it.

"I'll tell you about Crocinda Vernus then. She is a vivacious ten year old that I found at her family's farm on Skye. Her mother is a cousin of Charity Burbage. Um, a squib actually. Do you remember Charity from Hogwarts? She taught muggle studies I think..."

"Her father was Irma Pince's son Lathyrus. As wizards go Lathyrus' power was... very limited, but I'm going off topic. Anyway, Crocinda's father Lathyrus was killed during the war and her mother got dragged off by, um... Voldemort's forces, to somewhere in... Well I found her in Egypt actually."

Ginny paused for a breath. "I'm sorry Harry, I'm really not telling this well. At the time I had just started working at the Ministry and was part of the census staff."

Harry smiled encouragingly.

"So I had a description of an apparition point on the farm but wasn't able to use it because the area had changed too much from the description for me to visualize my destination accurately. I ended up collecting information on half a dozen farmsteads to investigate on foot, so to speak, and the Vernus farm was the last on that list. It would be too sad to have to describe the others, so I'll skip over them if you don't mind. On the last stop I found what at first seemed to be more of the same. Their house was destroyed and much of the farmland burned, but surprisingly the fire had skipped over their barn. And there inside, I found Crocinda.

"She had her father's wand," Ginny laughed softly at the memory. "and she even tried to hex me when I landed. I'm afraid I stunned her on autopilot after that; you know after all that practice we did in the DA it is reflex as much as intention."

"When I went to investigate who had attacked me I found a slip of a girl. At the time I thought she was maybe seven or eight, though I learned later that she was actually ten. Still even at ten I'd have been impressed that she'd managed to cast the hex, well formed as it was. I set about creating a calming ward, and then revived her, and the moment after I revived her she was on her feet again and I think she would have hexed me again had I not taken her wand from her little hands."

"It took two days before she really trusted me to move out of her line of sight, so I sat with her and I talked, and told her stories. I talked about home mostly, but some about the war. I told her some of the bedtime stories that mother used to tell us to send us into sleep. And eventually we became friends. Oh, Harry, you wouldn't believe how beautiful she is," Ginny paused to collect herself before she teared up. "She showed me how she had survived the previous year without her parents. At night she slept in the sheep pens to stay warm; by day she led them down to the seaside where they ate kelp, returning to the barn before nightfall even in the short winter days on Skye. For the most part all she had to eat was sheep's milk, of which I gather she was heart tired, but in the summer there were some root vegetables that came up where her mother's garden had been. She had a little hoard of parsnips and beets hidden away out of reach of the animals.

"As our friendship grew she also confided in me her story of how her father had been killed and her mother abducted. So when I got back to London I requested a transfer to the missing persons bureau, and a few weeks later I managed to find her mother using a homing charm and a locket she had given the girl that contained a lock of hair inside that belonged to her mother. It hasn't always been that easy of course, but that is still what I live for, to reunited children with their own parents. I wish..."

"Well, ..." Ginny was tearing up now, "when I reunited Crocinda with Helena they both broke down in tears. I can't describe it."

"Harry, do you remember Fred's wake?"

Harry nodded uncomfortably.

"It was like that, awash in a flood of emotion. Sadness for what was lost, happiness for what was found; nothing I can say can really describe it." Ginny looked at Harry and realized that she'd said something that upset him, but couldn't tell where it had gone wrong. "Harry, are you okay?"

"I'd better go, I have a lot of work to do in the morning" said Harry. And only a little stiffly, "It has been wonderful seeing you Ginny, we should do it more often." Harry lifted his hand and signaled the waiter. "Bring anything the lady would like, you can add it to my account."

And only a minute later Harry was gone. Anger and remorse filled Ginny's mind as salt tears trickled down her cheeks.

* * *

An hour later Ginny was still walking darkened streets in downtown London wondering what in the world had come over Harry to behave like that. The thoughts raced back and forth. "He must hate me. Why can't I understand him? I should hate the bastard for leaving like that. Why do I have to love him?" In anguish she sat on a public bench trying to bring her thoughts into some sort of sense.

"He was hurting I think, just like Crocinda, and somehow I managed to put my foot in it. But how do I get him to stick around long enough to trust me? Long enough to heal? Do I dare make him? Will that just push him away?"

* * *

Ginny resumed walking aimlessly until she found to herself at the public entrance to the Ministry of Magic. Before she could talk herself out of it she formed her plan.

"Hi...," reading the name tag Ginny continued "Jeanne. I'm Ginevra Weasley, with the department of missing persons, and I'm looking for an Auror. Can you provide me his current address?"

Jeanne glanced at the ID, then at the request and raised her eyebrows. "Is this personal or ministry business", she asked. Her voice had a nasal quality that put Ginny on edge but she gave her a friendly smile and lied through her teeth. "Ministry business."

"Okay Ginevra. Wait a moment while I get his address from the files."

Minutes later Ginny was back outside the ministry and within half an hour she was standing outside Harry's door. "Oh Merlin, this is the stupidest thing you've ever done," Ginny was berating herself. She poised to knock on the door, but couldn't bear to move her hand and so stood there like a statue for a good two minutes when to her surprise the door opened in front of her.

"Hi Ginny," said Harry. "You may as well come in. I can't sleep either."

"Wait!" Her voice came out a croak, her heart was in her throat. Before she could lose her nerve she stepped into Harry, and reaching up behind his neck and pulled him into a kiss. It wasn't soft and sweet as she had planned, it was desperate and needy and she figured that if anything would drive him away that would.

But to her surprise he responded in kind. Pulling her into his arms so forcefully that she couldn't breathe for a moment then releasing but holding their mouths close. Ginny felt Harry's tongue play over her lips and she met him, tasting his mouth, letting him taste hers.

Harry shuddered and his knees buckled. "What is it my love," Ginny asked without pause for consideration.

"You can't imagine," he started. Ginny took his face in her hands and whispered. "Tell me".

"You can't imagine how lonely I have been Ginny. After Fred died, ..." his face wrenched in anguish. "After Fred, I knew I didn't deserve you. Not any of you. It was so awful being there and knowing that it was my fault that you, and George, and Molly..."

Ginny held Harry to her, for the first time she had an inkling of just how much the war had cost Harry. Not just his parents, but his confidence that he was, that he could be wanted, needed, loved. Ginny pressed lightly on Harry's shoulders lowering him to the floor to sit cross legged, then she sat in his lap and wrapped her legs and arms around him an held him close for a long while.


	3. Chapter 3: Home Late

Home Late

"Young lady, where do you think you were last night?" Molly's tone indicated that she was not to be trifled with.

"Mother, please! I'm so not in the mood!"

After staying up all night with Harry, Ginny was short of patience. She and Harry had sat together quietly for a time before they began talking. Being up together so late gave Ginny the feeling that they were the only two people in the world that night. Ginny spoke up first, offering him the first story, her memories of learning to fight in the DA, and shyly, explaining to Harry how she had begun bargaining with herself, ultimately promising herself that she would marry him. She ended the story on a light laugh while never looking away from his eyes. "Yes, I really was that naïve once, but the memory of it still warms me. It makes me feel comforted, just being around you." Harry didn't laugh, nor did he dismiss her remembrances as trivial. He returned her confidence with his own stories; his hopes for wizarding Britain if only he could find a way to resolve the prejudice and hate that divided them, and his fears that wizardry hung by such a slender thread that all too easily magic might be extinguished forever. Of those they had talked until the sun rose on a new day.

Ginny stepped past her mother without looking at her, and began climbing the stairs. She was really hoping to get both clean clothes and a shower before she had to apparate to the ministry.

"Ginevra Molly Weasley, you come back here this instant!" Molly hissed toward the retreating back. "I'm not done talking to you!"

Ginny ignored her.

"I will be talking to your father about this!"

That evening Ginny came home dog tired. "Ginny, I need to talk to you dear," her father spoke softly. Ginny sighed and beckoned for her father to follow.

"You know that your mother is very worried about you?"

"Dad, I've been awake now for about 38 hours, so let us try to keep this short, ok? I know that mum is worried, but her ideas of what is proper were old in the middle ages. And I didn't even do anything, ok? The way she goes on you'd think that I'm sleeping around with any boy who happens to strike my fancy. Well, I'm not! I just was out with Harry and we ended up talking through the night. And that is all that happened."

"Staying out late is part of it, but there is also showing respect to your mother..."

"As if she were showing respect to me..."

"...which is a duty you owe her even when she is short with you. You know that she loves you and worries about you."

Ginny moaned. "Ok dad, I'll give in. Tell mum I'm sorry. But please dad, try to get her to relax some. I'm not a teenager, I am more than old enough to live on my own and set my own schedule if I want to."

"If you will try to give your mother the respect she deserves, I will try to explain to her that you are no longer a child. But you have to know how hard it is for her to let go of you kids, and you are her last. Remember that she treasures you."

"Ok, daddy, only right now I'm shattered. I need to get to bed before I drop. Good night?" she asked, giving him a pleading smile.

"Good night, dear." Arthur slipped out of his daughter's room and closed the door softly behind him.


	4. Chapter 4: Second Date

Second Date

_[[Missing you. Dinner? My treat if you are up for Francesca's at half eight_._]] _

Ginny re-read the interoffice memo that had appeared on her desk while she was down in document archives, then scrawled a simple affirmative and refolded the memo. With a practiced flick of her wrist she launched it into the air to return to its sender. She smiled to herself, it was a Friday night and Ginny had a date.

Harry was already seated by the time Ginny arrived. Francesca's was one of three eateries conveniently located in the ministry, and the best of the three, but a far cry from genuine Italian cooking. But what Francesca's lost in authenticity it more than made up in convenience, and Ginny was ravenous.

"Hope you haven't been waiting too long..."

"Nah, I just got here. I haven't even gotten my beer yet. What will you have?"

"Honeyduke's?" Ginny wondered, laughing.

"For me, or for you? I asked for a pull of bitter, but I'd be happy to buy you a Honeyduke's if you like."

"No, thanks anyway. I like the house red though. It's a Zin they import for cheap from California's central valley, but I think it tastes like fermented blackberries. And the aftertaste of currant and chocolate is just heavenly."

Both Harry and Ginny sipped silently from their drinks for a minute, before both started speaking at once: "About the other night..."

Harry broke into a grin, "You go first..."

Ginny gazed into Harry's eyes and began to blush. "It was good to see you again. I have friends, and there is my family of course, but I don't get a chance to talk so comfortably with anyone else.

"And you, sitting there so glamorous in your Auror's robes, I bet all the witches are probably fighting to be in your bed right now," Ginny teased. "But if you want to, I mean if you can make the time for me, I'd like very much to spend more time with you."

Harry gazed back at her directly, green eyes piercing her soul. A minute passed silently.

"I would like that too." And with that Harry handed Ginny a small box.

Ginny's heart skipped a beat. This was going too fast; with nervous fingers she touched three runes on the top that roughly translated meant destiny, or soul journey, or something like that. At her touch the box opened and within she found a locket in silver filigree with seven small rubies raining like a starburst from the antlers of a rampant stag. The piece was small but beautiful in its intricacy. The locket depended from a thin chain, also finely wrought, of platinum perhaps?

"Why, it is beautiful. The top left quadrant of the Black family crest, isn't it?"

"Indeed it is," Harry smiled. "Actually it is one of the pieces that were stolen by Mundungus back when the Order was using Grimauld place. I had a loss trace on as many of the pieces as I could identify by description, and this one just came back to me yesterday. Don't worry though, I've checked it for magic and the aura is clean."

Ginny gestured to Harry to help her put it on and Harry reached behind her neck, his hand warm and dry on her neck as he fastened the chain clasp.

"I've enchanted it now of course," Harry continued.

Ginny paused wide eyed. "To do what?"

"Consider it an invitation, but let me show you before I tell you. Touch the stag and say 'Abraxas'." Harry dropped two galeons on the table. Ginny eyed him suspiciously, but Harry just winked.

"Abraxas," she whispered. There was a familiar pulling sensation centered at her navel and...

Ginny looked around in wide eyed wonder. Before her stretched a little used dirt road, which to her right side fell down ragged black rock cliffs to pounding surf. To her left was a vineyard, though not a variety she recognized, cultured by the old fashioned method, each vine grown like a stunted old tree. Beneath the grape leaves the fruit was just beginning to break, some green, some reddening in air still warm with moisture despite the sun lowering itself toward the waves.

A crack of apparition and Harry stood beside her. "Sorry that took a minute or two longer than I thought it would," he admitted.

"What... is this?" she asked, spinning to gather it all in at once.

"This is the estate. My estate now, I guess, but part of what Sirius bequeathed to me."

"But where?"

"Ah, yes. This particular property has been in the family since one of the Black ancestors, a wizard named Astero Neigri, liberated it from Roman occupation in A.D 470 or so. At the time it was a fairly productive source of silver; indeed some of the Sestersius in the London museum are, I believe, from this very estate."

"Merlin's beard, but that's," Ginny struggled to understand.

"Yes, it predates the interdict of Merlin. Actually from what I can tell Merlin's magic never penetrated the protective enchantments of the estate. This is a place of wild magic, possibly the only place in the world where the runes of power can still be read."

Ginny gulped. "But it looks so peaceful, so beautiful."

"Oh, it is that. Time stops here, in a way... ah, here comes the coach." As Harry pointed, a coach drawn by a matching pair of dappled grey horses pulled to a stop in front of them. "Ginevra Weasley, may I present Halcyon, manor elf of house Black.

The elf was like none other Ginny had ever seen. Standing half a head taller than Harry, the elf was lean with angular features, next to which the house elves of Britain seemed like simpleton pygmies. Never before had Ginny seen or imagined a fully clothed and lithe silver haired elf with jet black skin.

The elf glanced at Ginny and then ignored her. "Lord Black," he hissed, "you should know by now that the night is not safe on this estate. If you will be staying we should hurry along before the light fails.

"What say you Ginny," Harry asked. "Would you like to dine with me at the manor? Or shall I take you back to Francesca's instead?"

Ginny looked at the deepening sunset and reddening sky. "Will we have view of the sunset?" she asked.

"You know, I believe we shall!" Harry grinned back.


	5. Chapter 5: Dinner and Dancing

Dinner and Dancing

Harry and Ginny sat side by side on the verandah as the last of reds faded into the deep purple blue of the night sky. The manor elves brought out tapas and Harry and Ginny shared the plates as they were served.

First came a crusty sour dough bread, broken into pieces and toasted over hardwood coals and then drizzled with Aioli. This was followed by green beans that were pan roasted with a salty fermented barley paste and garlic. They were served cubed loin of venison seared in hot oil and spiced with cracked pepper. Then there was an artichoke on a bed of salty, buttery mashed potatoes and drenched in a sauce so unusual that Ginny had asked to talk to the elf who had made it. "Lord and lady," the elf greeted them. "The potatoes golden butter potatoes grown here on the estate. The sauce itself is made in the Ayurvedic tradition," the elf explained. "The key is to create balance between the six flavors; salt, sweet, bitter, sour, pungent, and astringent."

"What about spicy, or oniony?" Ginny wondered.

"Hot spices, per se, are not used in the ayurvedic tradition," the elf intoned. "And garlic, onion, and similar flavors are considered medicinal and are not used in this dish."

By the end of the meal Ginny couldn't even remember how many dishes there had been, but each one was unique, flavorful, and mouth wateringly good. And for the whole of the languid meal Harry had regaled her with the story of how he had discovered the key to finding the manor while trying to figure out what do with the contents of the Black family vault.

"I had found the locket fairly early in my search, but it was very frustrating trying to get the locket opened. I spent maybe a week just researching and trying out different opening charms, and I had basically given up when I happened across some loose notes in one of the old family diaries. I think I was just thumbing through looking for something that I could attach a date to so I could estimate how old the diary was and I found two butterfly wings. Well as soon as they were out they started flapping around the room and I was chasing them down trying to get them back into the book when I tripped over a pile of books I hadn't yet had time to reshelf. I ended up tumbling into them and in pain from one particular book that ended up bruising my backside. When I had finally righted myself I reached down to retrieve the book, and I found that it had ripped its seam. And there sewn inside the seam was a small filigreed silver key."

"I pocketed the key and might have forgotten about it with all of that mess to clean up, but the locket was in my pocket from earlier and when I dropped the key in the locket started chirping."

"Well that's odd, I thought, what have I got that's chirping in my pocket?"

"…Turns out it is the locket, and with the key present there is a little keyhole that is visible. I put the key in the hole, turned it, and out pops a gemstone carved front and back with the image of a strange magical animal with the head of a cockerel, the body of a man, and with snakes for legs."

Harry paused long enough to take a bite of roasted fig stuffed with chevre and dripping with honey.

"It was an image of Abraxas, of course. I whispered the name under my breath when I recognized it, and poof. I was here. Right through the wards at Gringotts like a hot knife through butter. The goblins were surprised, too, and failed to see the inherent humor in the situation, but eventually let me explain it with the proviso that the stone be placed under additional Goblin protective spells, and that I must give at least a week notice if I intended to use it again. But I've made two portkeys to replace it, of which the second is the one that you are wearing around your neck."

Ginny was feeling flushed from the odd tasting red wine produced at the manor, and was feeling full and pampered, but it really did seem to be getting late. She looked Harry in the eyes and kissed him deeply, then pulled away.

"Thanks, Harry. This has been such a wonderful evening, but it is late and I really should be getting home before breakfast this time."

Harry froze for a moment, his smile disappearing in a worried frown.

"Ah, I fear that might present a problem," he confessed. "I should have considered that you would want to sleep in your own bed tonight."

Worry made Ginny's voice sound more cross than she felt. "Are you short of Floo powder?"

"No, I'm afraid it's worse than that. The manor isn't on the flue network at all; actually the wards protecting the Black estate are unlike any I've ever heard of before. Are you familiar with the Fidelius ward?"

Ginny summarized what she knew, "that is the ward where no one but the secret keeper can reveal whatever it is that is protected by the ward. Everyone to whom the secret is not revealed will be unable to perceive that object however large it may be, even if it is sitting right in front of them."

"Yes, basically that is correct. The ward on the Black estate is an older and more complex one although it shares some similarity to the Fidelius. As far as I can tell it is impossible for anyone outside the warded area to discuss the area protected by the ward at all, or for that matter to describe anything that happened while they were here. I've tried writing or talking about the estate. I have even tried talking about things that it isn't, but as with the Fidelius, your mind simply skips over the intervening area as if it wasn't there. You can think about the house, or you can form a plan to communicate. What you cannot do is think about the house and communicate that thought."

"Thus the reason why you said it would be easier to show me the estate than tell me about it?"

"Exactly."

"So," Ginny asked glumly. "What does that have to do with getting me home?"

"I was getting to that. As far as I can tell the estate ward creates a barrier that prevents any magic that originates outside the barrier from coming in, and vice versa. The only exception to that rule that I've been able to find is an area of about two square meters where we started that allows a variety of transport magics to move oneself from inside the wards to outside, and vice versa."

"Ok, so why can't we go back to the portal and apparate from there?" Ginny asked.

"Well, there are two problems with that plan. The first is that the wards form the shape of a tunnel near the portal. I believe it was constructed in that way so that an attacking army would have to proceed in a narrow column allowing defenders plenty of opportunity to, well to defend I suppose. But the other role the tunnel has is to act as a ramp for the changing time base..."

"Sorry, you've lost me again."

"I think I mentioned earlier that time passes differently in the manor? The effect is fairly drastic. Two years ago, shortly after I discovered it, I came out while on a one week vacation . I had planned to return with a day to spare, but after five days here I got back to find Aurors in my flat looking for clues in my disappearance. It took a while to figure out why they were there, and by that time I'd already admitted that I thought it was still five days earlier than they did, so I had to spend half a day at St. Mungo's into the bargain just to verify that I hadn't been tampered with. The upshot is that I think that a day here is the equivalent of about two days outside."

"Isn't this a bit late to be telling me about your time shifting house?" Ginny choked. "Mother is going to just kill me. She was furious with me last time and I was home before breakfast. Now you are telling me that not only can't I leave, but when I do get back it will be the better part of a day later. I can't stay here for two days!" With a wail she continued, "mother will be petrified if I don't come home."

"Oh Ginny, I'm so sorry. It is entirely my fault. Only; when I thought of the idea of showing you this place I got carried away. It is so fascinating in so many ways; I haven't even begun to tell you. I wanted to share it with you... I am sorry."

"Can't we take the carriage back to the portal? I'd even walk back."

"No, that would be very risky. Night just isn't safe on the grounds here."

Harry paused to gather his thoughts. "Did your parents ever tell you the tale about the, um, rabbit I think it was. He was doomed every night to be hunted and eaten by hellhounds, until one night an old witch crossed his path while he was trying to escape and agreed to hide him. When the devil came along with his hounds baying before him, the witch told the devil that she had seen the rabbit hopping across the lake, which was true since she had seen him doing just that before she hid him. And the devil sensing that she was speaking the truth let her pass. Then on the next night a wizard visited the old witch and said that he was the rabbit who had been chased and because she had broken the spell he would reward her. And I think the seven hell hounds have been chasing their way across the night sky every night thereafter never again able to locate their prey."

"Here on the estate grounds the hunt is still earthly rather than heavenly, and I have seen the hell hounds baying, their eyes burning with fire, and sparks flying from their noses. I do not yet have the means of protecting you from them outside this house." Harry finished with a look of regret.

Ginny shuddered then kissed Harry lightly on the lips before resting her forehead against his. "It's okay," she said. "I'll deal with it somehow." Then she punched him in the shoulder.

"Ow, what was that for?"

"I just realized that you cut my weekend down to one day! I like my time off!"

Harry laughed. "Ok, but when you wake up next morning, just tell me that it isn't the most refreshing night's sleep you have ever had and I'll let you punch me again."

From the great hall a flute began playing a rapid and winding melody. This was soon accompanied by drums and a high sweet voice singing in a voice as alien as it was beautiful.

"Come," Harry pulled Ginny up. "The elves have stopped work for the night and are starting to dance. Let us go join them."

"Ginny bit her lip, kissed Harry briefly again, then she let herself be pulled after him."


	6. Chapter 6: Bedroom Negotiations

Bedroom Negotiations

"Wait Harry. I can't", Ginny put her hands against his chest and pushed him away bodily, gasping.

Between the wine and the spinning dance Ginny was feeling intoxicated when she pulled him out of the great hall and down a corridor toward the bedrooms. Warmth suffused her as his tongue darted around her ear. He kissed her neck following her rapidly beating pulse down to her collar bone.

Ginny pulled at Harry's shirt, freeing shirt tails from trousers and began to unbutton him. Hands on his chest she caressed him, feeling taut muscles ripple under soft skin. Reaching around to his back, Ginny traced the curve of his spine until skin was blocked by waistband. Harry's hands traced a light outline following the curvature of her breast, before with nimble fingers he too unfastened the front of Ginny's blouse. Ginny dropped her hands and let it fall to the floor.

Then his mouth met hers again and her whole world closed down to the small space that their tongues fought over. Ginny gasped a breath and noted that Harry had removed her bra at some point during the kiss and they were now touching skin to skin from waist to shoulder as he tumbled with her into the plush four post bed.

Harry brought his hands up to her chest and with strong hands kneaded breast and nipple sending electric shocks into her core. With tongue and mouth he sucked and pulled, not roughly, but gently teasing and Ginny's mind was deep in her body coursing on rippling waves of tension and desire.

Without really meaning to, Ginny found that her hands had crept under the waistband of his trousers trying to reach his bum. Tracing their way around his body, her fingers found the waistband clasp and with a quick tug she unfastened the waist, unzipping the fly as she moved. With that settled she reached back around him, and there with strong fingers she kneaded the gluteal muscles that gave him such an attractive back side.

Ginny's breath stopped in her throat when Harry began tracing a line of kisses down her midline from breast bone to navel. His warm breath suffused her with heat while his fingers traced the shape of the frog clasp that secured the belt which suspended jeans. A fumbling moment later and she felt his fingers and the cooling night air in the exposed Vee of her pants and she lifted her hips so that he could slide the jeans past her hips. With her own fingers she gripped her knickers to keep them from being pulled along with.

Then rolling on top of Harry, she finished pulling off his trousers, pushing and kicking them aside with her feet, noting as she did so that underneath he was wearing silver grey boxers, with a Chinese dragon embroidered that chased its way over his right hip to parts unseen.

Playing his fingers over her belly, Harry began moving his hand in light caresses as he teased at the waist of her panties. When he started to lift the elastic away from her skin she growled and rolled him onto his back and pulling herself on top with legs straddling his torso. "Oops, mistake," Ginny thought to herself as she bucked involuntarily to the intimate stimulation of sitting atop him.

Harry grinned at her. "Do you know, when you are positioned like that with your hair falling all around me, I feel as though I'm surrounded by a waterfall."

"Do you know," she purred, "that I thought you were going to say something else entirely?" Ginny laughed and bucked against him, again pressing herself deeply into him.

This time it was Harry's turn to growl. With a quick shift he flipped them over and with his hands reached down to pull her knickers aside, fingers already inside her as her body supplied slippery lubricant.

"Wait. I can't..." Ginny brought her palms to his chest and pushed him away bodily, gasping. Thighs squeezed together tightly, Ginny curled herself into a ball and turned away. "I'm sorry, but I just can't."

Harry stared dumbly for a moment, surprised and frustrated. With a calming breath he settled himself and let the heat of the moment pass through him. "Hush. It's okay. Hush. You don't have to do anything you don't want to."

Ginny shivered and Harry pulled the covers up over her and cuddled himself behind her.

"Don't hate me, ok?" Ginny whispered.

"Never! I couldn't."

"It's only that... well it's a long story and kind of personal."

"Sure."

"Only you'll have to promise not to tell anyone. And I really mean anyone."

"Ginny, even if I were inclined to abuse your trust that way, the wards..."

"Eep."

"...wouldn't let me. It really isn't possible to both think about and talk about any aspect of this place. Not what happens, not what we discuss. Nothing!"

How strange, she thought. Here I am at his mercy, he could do anything with me that he wants to and if he is right I'd never be able to tell anyone, and still he treats me with love and respect even though he'd never be held accountable if he weren't.

"It isn't a nice story," she admitted. "It began maybe forty years ago. My mother was twelve and was sleeping over with her cousin Claire. In the middle of the night my grand uncle, mother's uncle, crept into the room and raped her."

Harry's arms tightened around her for a moment before relaxing. "Raped Molly, you mean? How terrible for her."

"I don't really know the details. I don't really want to know the details," she continued. "It was the summer before I enrolled in Hogwarts, not quite a year after I met you for the first time, when mother found out that dad was having an affair with some girl at the ministry. She tried to hide it from me while I was awake, but late at night I would hear them arguing, and there was always tension around the house during the day."

"One night I crept from my room and listened in. I wanted to know what they were fighting about, so I listened. Mother was angry and yelling in that sharp way she has. Dad was calm, responding but not yelling until Mother said something about how she should never have married a Weasley. Father did become angry then, and what he said to her then I can't get out of my mind. _I never had sex with anyone but you. Not until our wedding night, and not after. But you, you did! You had sex before you were even a teenager. How should I know how many boys you slept with! Yet you begrudge me one other woman, just one!_"

"Harry, I thought they would divorce after that. The next morning mother came into my room and told me that she would be leaving. She was miserable and I sat and talked to her there, and she said '…_the one thing I want for you is that you will never have sex until you are married. Promise me that child.'_ And so I promised. How could I not?"

"That night Dad came home a changed man though. He had ended the affair that day, and when he came home he brought mother a ring with a cut ruby heart that was staggering. It was even larger than her engagement ring. And he asked her to forgive him, and said it would never happen again."

"I want to... I really do want to make love to you, Harry. I want to be sophisticated and easy going like my girlfriends. I want it not to be such a big deal, and it shouldn't be, but I can't do it knowing what it would mean to mother. And she is going to be so angry with me already, just for being gone. I just can't."

They lay quietly for a minute or ten. "Tell me what you are thinking," she whispered.

"A lot of things really. I think it may be difficult to respect your father after this; whatever the provocation, I really can't respect comparing your mother's rape as a child to his own infidelity. That goes beyond the pale for me.

"I know that dad has his flaws, but he was angry. Mother's accusations toward the Weasley name cut him deeply. Please don't judge him too harshly."

"Oh, I'd be the first to admit to being a flawed human being, but even if I grant that his views on sex are inescapable beliefs formed in his upbringing, still it really makes me angry. I don't know that I would have taken him back, were I Molly. But I guess I'm not."

"I'm also having problems with your mother's point of view. For her to equate her own experiences to sex between consenting adults is also hard to digest. It simply isn't true any longer that witches who have sex before marriage will never be able to make peace with their husbands once they are married. Witness any number of our friends who have normal premarital relationships leading to perfectly normal marriages."

"I don't know. I think it would take a real caveman to be so possessive as to be offended by something that happened even before a couple had met. I'm not even sure it was ever true barring some fragment of degenerate men who are unable to moderate their jealousy with reason."

Harry paused for a second before continuing. "Do you really think that your father was jealous, or was he just holding up a flimsy and hurtful excuse to rationalize his own actions?"

Ginny thought about it for a while. "I haven't really ever thought about it that way. I mean I know that mum and dad aren't perfect, but I never really tried to reevaluate their ideas in quite that way."

Ginny continued still worried, "But what I really meant to ask was what you think about me. Can you understand... me?"

"Ginny, I think that you are beautiful. I think you are sexy and much more sophisticated than I am. I think you are fun, and smart, and loving."

"Sure I'm frustrated, even uncomfortably so," Harry winced and shifted his weight. "But I also think you are so much more important to me than that."

Ginny closed her eyes. "I love you," she whispered unvoiced.


	7. Chapter 7: Breakfast

Breakfast

Ginny awoke with the first light of the day feeling brighter and more alive than she could ever remember. Harry was still curled around her, left hand sandwiched between her breasts. Wiggling her bottom back into his body, got a muzzy response from behind her. "You, Miss Weasley, are playing with fire," Harry groaned.

She turned over and kissed him on the lips, humming. "Mustn't get burnt..."

When his only protest was a soft snore Ginny clambered out of bed and into the bath. After showering she wrapped herself in a full length bath robe and strode into the lower hall to look for breakfast. Morning light flooded the tea room to one side of the hall when she stepped inside. "This looks tempting," Ginny thought, pouring coffee from a press and mixing it with cream.

Just then Harry strode inside from the patio, and Ginny giggled when he did an almost comical double-take, but her laugh subsided when she saw the look on his face.

"Gods, Ginny!" Harry deadpanned. "You are alive!"

"Of course I am alive silly," she was confused by his sense of humor, and his stare was making her feel a little uncomfortable.

"But I saw you in the room when Crabbe cast the fiendfyre. I nearly killed myself trying to save you. I was devastated when I had to tell Molly you were gone. How in the world did you survive?"

"Look Harry, you are scaring me. You know that I wasn't there when the fiendfyre was set since you fetched me out. Why are you doing this?"

Just then Harry walked into the tea room from the terrace, leading Hermione Granger closely behind. "And this is… Ginny? What in the world are you doing here?" Harry asked. Hermione slipped an arm possessively about Harry's waist leveling a cold stare at Ginny.

Ginny looked from one Harry to the other, confused. "Wait which of you is Harry?" she asked.

Before either could answer Harry walked into the room. Luna Lovegood followed closely behind her arms reaching around his head and covering his eyes, effectively blindfolding him. "Okay, two steps in… oh dear, that is very surprising," said Luna dropping her hands.

"Ginny, are you in here?" Harry, hair dripping wet and towel wrapped around his waist walked into the tea room. "Merlin's beard!" he exclaimed.


	8. Chapter 8: A Surprising Development

_Author's Note: The story becomes confusing here for a while as all of the differences between the worlds are touched upon, but this sets up the conditions that ultimately cause Ginny to grow beyond her world of love and romance, to take a more hardheaded and realistic view of herself and others. It also sets the stage for the adventure plot which is finally being given some time to run its course._

A Surprising Development

* * *

Harry looked around the room eyeing the other Harrys. Early in the morning of surprises one of the other Harrys had suggested that they arrange the tea room in a loose circle where everyone could see everyone else.

"First off, Hermione and I want to thank all of you for coming. We realize that this is a big shock to all of you, and we thank you for coming to our rescue even though you had little choice in the matter," said the Harry who was holding hands with Hermione. "But Hermione and I have formulated a plan for destroying the Voldemorts for once and all, and we needed your help…"

Harry turned and looked at Ginny who shrugged. "Excuse me, but do you mean to say that your Voldemort isn't dead?"

Hermione nodded. "Of course he isn't dead. There are seven of him running around and only one Harry, how could he be dead?"

"So, you didn't destroy the Horcruxes?" Harry next to Luna asked.

"Um. What is a Horcrux," asked Hermione.

"This is really bad," said the Harry who was alone.

"Really, really bad," said the Harry who was holding a small baby.

For Ginny, the anxiety had been building all day. Six other worlds and in each one she had died a different gruesome death. Hermione said neither Harry nor she had seen Ginny after the series of unsolved killings that started during her second year, and they seemed to be genuinely surprised to find out that a horcrux in the shape of a diary lay at the heart of those killings.

Hermione hadn't fared much better. In four of the seven worlds Hermione never survived her first year at Hogwarts, alternately dying at the hand of a troll, or a demented three headed dog.

Dumbledore, in Harry and Hermione's world had not survived his first encounter with a horcrux, but had instead bequeathed another living body to Voldemort, leaving the pair blind in their planning for how to defeat the dark lord. And only the Harry with a baby was able to draw upon a Dumbledore who had outlived the destruction of Voldemort.

"So, you two, Harry and Ginny. What is different in your world?" asked Harry with the baby.

"I'm not sure what you are asking," said Ginny. "Whose baby is that anyway, and where is its mother?"

"Oh, this is our daughter Claire and she is yours and mine. I mean my Ginny of course, not you per se."

Ginny was speechless for a moment. "But… But you said I was dead in your world."

"Oh, you are, and in case I hadn't mentioned it yet, it is very good to see you alive again. I am quite envious of you _Harry who still has Ginny_. In my world you were killed in cold blood on a London street corner while waiting to cross. The killer was an amateur, a Death Eater by the name of Cauldton, who was taking revenge on me for the death of his master." Ginny felt a shiver run through Harry as the name Cauldton was spoken. "But because he was so sloppy we had plenty of time to send a witness back using a time turner and capture a high quality image of the perpetrator. It took less than a week to catch him."

Ginny's Harry looked at the Harry with a baby with a slowly growing sense of unease. Hung over one shoulder he carried a sleeping baby in a sling. With his free hand he toyed with the elder wand, that wand of Dumbledore's that Harry himself had given up; returned to Dumbledore's grave to divorce the future of its chaotic influence. For some reason he couldn't fathom this Harry had decided to keep and wield that wand.

"Well one significant difference between us is that in my world I'm not a mother," Ginny ventured.

"Really!" Harry with the baby looked surprised. "But how long have you two been married?"

"Well, we aren't married", Ginny admitted. "Harry and I haven't even seen each other since Fred's funeral and wake."

"I thought it was George who died," Luna interjected.

"Um. Not in our world at least. And in our world Harry and I just started dating two days ago." Ginny counted out the days on her fingers. "Oh, I guess it is four days ago now."


	9. Chapter 9: The Map Room

_Author's Note: In this chapter I explain the underlying magic that joins the realms. Hermione touches on a lot of biology here as she explains how the runes establish our reality. I may have gotten carried away in the details here, but I love the idea that the universe is constructed on top of ideas, and that magic works by playing with those ideas in ways not dissimilar to the way computer programmers build programs. If it gets too stuffy for you, feel free to skip to the next chapter, but with the understanding that runes as the underlying fabric of reality will play a part in the final battle._

The Map Room

* * *

Hermione sat alone and cross-legged in the center of the map room. Around her were layered circles of runes carefully drawn in chalk lines. As the group looked on, Hermione closed her eyes and began chanting, a look of deep concentration on her face. The air around her began to glow with a pale white ghost light that next started to resolve into shapes. Suddenly she stopped chanting and stepped out of the ring of runes and toward the group waiting for her.

"These," Hermione pointed to the globe. "Are the runes of power. I will try to break them down for you." Hermione took out her wand and let her power flow into it raising a glow at the wand tip. This she modulated wordlessly into a blue ball of light which she dragged across the runes letting the light flow out and stick to the runes so that a set of them appeared to become tinted. "This first set is the oldest and it defines the same consensus reality that all humanity shares, muggle and wizard alike."

"These define the Cartesian dimensions. Here light and dark are given meaning. These are the runes that define the states of matter, one for air, one for earth, one for water. This set of runes separates the realms of life and death. Here we finally add fire to the realms, but as you will see later the fire rune is bound to each realm in its own distinct way. Here are two runes that separate the vastness of space from the stars and planets that fly within that space. The next dozen runes define the basic chemistry of our world, nitrogen, oxygen, carbon, and so forth."

Hermione paused to check her audience. "Is everyone following, or do I need to stop and explain?" Meeting blank stares, "I'll just continue then, shall I. We'll get an overview and fill in the gaps later as we need to."

"This set of runes permits life to exist. The first three define the molecular bonds common to all life from the most basic proto-virus to the most complex higher organisms. This next set allows DNA chains to be formed. Here are the rules that permit eukaryotic cells to exist and reproduce asexually. This next set of runes separates the germ line from the somatic cell lines effectively giving rise to sexual reproduction. This rune and the next define recombinant DNA and the rules of protein folding respectively. By now you should be noticing that with so much of the core of reality defined each new rune has vast impacts on how organisms behave. This rune partially separates the kingdoms, plants, animals and so forth, but I believe it contains a serious error. The set next to it constrains most complex organisms to one of the kingdoms."

"And this last rune is the end cap, the lock without a key that constrains reality to just these runes and no others. We have no idea who or what created this original set of runes up to the end cap, but whoever it was must have been very powerful, or very wise, but not entirely infallible as I will explain shortly."

Hermione looked around the room. "I realize that this is a lot to take in so quickly. In the main this is what Harry and I have been researching for the last two years in our attempt to defeat the seven Voldemorts." When no one interrupted she decided to continue.

"In our wizarding Britain it is common to ask which came first, the wizard or the muggle. As you can see from the runes, it is the muggle world, not the magical one, that is implied by the runes leading up to the end cap. Let's look at the next set of runes though. The next four are enormously important, they define what is in essence an insertion attack on the core runes.

"You'll recall that I said I believe that the rune separating the life kingdoms contains a serious error? The error lies in the basic tenet that only life forms at least as complex as a eukaryotic cell are subject to the constraints emplaced there. My guess is that whoever created concensus reality never imagined that any life more primitive than that would ever be able to understand or envision the runes of power and thus be unable to affect them. This next set of runes defines a strand of RNA, in essence a viral prion, that violates all of those assumptions. Hardcoded into its sequence are the core runes, and when it binds to transcriptase, the resulting proteins are able to form new runes which can then be inserted into the core reality. This hack is, I believe, the basis for all magic. My research I suggests that it was first invented circa three thousand years ago in ancient Babylon."

"Just a few more sections and my explanation will be complete." Hermione apologized. "So stick with me for just a bit longer. The next set of runes here define the interfaces required to interact with the hack, this one defines the allele which must be found in your bodily DNA in order to be magical, the next defines the intent you must have. The next rune defines how the intent must be indicated, binding language to intent to rune, but that work is very sloppy and riddled with errors in my opinion. And the last defines the token you must be holding. We use wands but really there are a variety of tokens that are implied by the rune. Next come a set of runes that attempt to impose a set of rules on what kinds of magic will be permitted; here is an exception to the previous runes for magical objects, here are two that allow natural objects to be made magical. As you can see this whole section is full of errors, exceptions, patches, and patches for the patches. Let's skip to the end though where I want to point out something important."

"This set of runes defines this manor and the grounds around it, and prevents magic not originating from inside the grounds to alter the state of these runes. This work is actually quite impressive and must have been done by a very accomplished rune master."

"If we were outside the wards of this estate these runes would be missing, and in their place you would find the interdict of Merlin, a set of runes that prohibits tampering with these runes which it does by imposing severe penalties for any erroneous casting of the rune chant. Outside this ward attempting to chant the rune revelation charm will be deadly to the caster unless they are already an expert in calling on the runes of power and are additionally able to cancel the penalty before it is enacted. Even then it is nearly impossible to change any of the runes in this intermediate area. Merlin bound arithmetic relations into the weaving of his locking rune that will detect even minor changes to the preceding runes and rapidly repair them. At most such magic will have perhaps fifteen seconds to take effect before the self-repair will remove the changes made."

Luna pointed a finger at a group of three runes that remained unhighlighted at the end of the chain. "What are those last three for then," she asked?

"Ah," Hermione admitted. "Those are mine."

"The first rune weakens the separation between the realms, nominally between life and death although it seems to also weaken the separation between realms of probability judging by the fact that you are all standing here. My changes provide an exception for two way travel."

"I based the work on a journal that I found that described how a wizard could travel the realms of the dead and later return to life. Although my patch defines an exception it doesn't actually let anyone use that exception, that is the job of the second rune." Hermione pointed. "I really didn't want the house to be invaded by hundreds or perhaps millions of previously dead people, so this rune is a binding that establishes a link between the exception of the first rune and heroes who are willing and able to defeat Voldemort. The last rune requires the presence of seven heroes at this place, beginning this morning at breakfast, until such time as Voldemort is defeated."

"To be honest, I thought we would get back Dumbledore and some of our other friends from the realm of the dead. In our world there are really only Hermione and myself who still hold out hope of defeating Voldemort," interjected Hermione's Harry. "Voldemort has been very careful never to attack me directly, but has efficiently attacked and removed every one of my friends and supporters, one at a time, until the only person I can rely on in the whole world is Hermione." Harry and Hermione clasped hands and hugged one another. "And now, after two years of painstaking research and hard work, we also have you."


	10. Chapter 10: Flirting And Misbehavior

Flirting And Misbehavior

"Can I hold my baby?" Ginny asked with a wink.

"Ginny, my love, since when could I ever deny you anything. Here hold her," Harry slipped the broad cloth carrier off his shoulder and handed both carrier and baby to Ginny. "It fits over your shoulder like this." Harry the father adjusted the fit so that his baby (and hers Ginny thought shyly), nestled closely by her breast.

"You look just like my cousin Adeline." Ginny cooed as the baby began to cry.

"I'd better take her back." Harry the father suggested.

"No not yet, tell me how to calm her."

"Well you can bounce on your toes a bit. Or rock from side to side. Perhaps she will go back to sleep, but if she doesn't she may be hungry, or she may need to be changed. She will cry before she pees, so if you are quick you can get her to a sink before she soils herself. It is an art as much as anything."

"What was your Ginny like," Ginny asked as she walked into the nearest bathroom. "How did you get married? What happened to bring you together?"

Harry the father looked uncomfortable. "After Bellatrix killed your mother we were just driven together, you know? You wouldn't let me out of your sight, even when I got very cross with you. I'm sorry about that by the way; I never got a chance to apologize to the real you. Anyway, being with you helped me to heal from all of the deaths that Voldemort caused. You loved me unconditionally, and that more than anything was what turned me away from remorse toward hopefulness. Ginny, I never loved you enough to repay that debt. Now I live for you, to be the parent to our child that you would have been." Harry finished with tears in his eyes.

Ginny looked away. Almost she wished she were that Ginny that this Harry loved so dearly, mother of this child. Even if it meant that she were dead now, it might be worth it for this. After changing their baby daughter Ginny returned her to her Harry, and kissed him. "That is for you from your Ginny, wherever she is now, for being such a loving husband and caring father."

Harry pulled out his wand and pulling a bath towel from the wall, transformed it into a crib, then with a whispered spell placed a now sleeping baby girl carefully within. Ginny noted with a little surprise that this Harry's wand was Dumbledore's elder wand, the same one that her Harry had returned to Dumbledore's grave rather than have it attract ever more death in the future.

Harry turned to Ginny, "Come with me. After all of this is over I mean, come back with me. I deserve you Ginny, your baby deserves you. We need you," as he spoke he drew nearer until they were standing only inches apart. Harry looked pained, "it isn't fair how much you look like her, smell like her, kiss like her. I want you back."

Ginny reached out to touch his face and Harry kissed her on the wrist, then on the lips. "We were married two years, Ginny. For two years you were my textbook, the map of my desires. And I know you inside and out. You know I know you. I know what you love, what you need."

"I do dream about you, sometimes," Ginny smiled wondering if it was cheating to kiss your boyfriend if your boyfriend was in two bodies. The thrill of being this close to him felt electric, a rush of sensation in her fingers every time she touched him.

"I dream about nothing else." Harry reached behind her and lifted her off the floor and sat her on the sink. Desperately, like a starving man given food, he kissed her. Deep and long he held her mouth captive while with his hands he unknotted the bath robe that she had almost forgotten putting on that morning, pulling her body to him as the robe fell away.

Without warning her body remembered the excitement of the previous evening, Ginny moaned into Harry's mouth as his hands played expertly over her body. One hand pulled her thick mane of hair over her shoulders, sensually pulling through her hair like her favorite brush. The other traced patterns down her spine pulling her into him and then sending waves of desire through her as he kneaded his palms into her.

She tried to pull back, to think, but there was too much sensation, too many things happening at once, and before she could object he too was naked, his body pressing against hers as fueled by love and desire her body began to blossom open.

Too close and too forcefully, she felt him there. Ginny pivoted her hips to move him away from this dangerous contact but instead captured him with her body. There she paused for a moment in fear as Harry pushed himself inward hardly noticing the slight wince of pain she gave as her innocence gave way to his desire.

"Oh, no, she sobbed unheard into his mouth, while Harry steered their bodies ever forward on a rising tide of shared euphoria. When their climax came, it came with wings that seemed to lift Ginny out of her body. Her legs shook, then her whole body shook as with her feet she pulled him into her with as much strength as she could bring to bear.

If was minutes later when sweaty and exhausted Harry leaned down for one more kiss. "I don't care about your world or your Harry, and if he cared for you half as much as I do he would have found you two years ago like I found my Ginny. Come back with me and you will be my world."

A tear fell from Ginny's right eye to trickle down her cheek, as Harry picked up his baby, then turned and left.


	11. Chapter 11: Remorse And Reconciliation

Remorse and Reconciliation

"What is it? What's wrong?" Ginny's Harry asked worried, hand on her shoulder. He had found her crying softly in the bedroom they had shared the night before.

"I'm so sorry, Harry. I was flirting with him, and I shouldn't have, and I didn't want to but I did and now you will never ever be able to love me because I'm filthy and disgusting and… and I'm so sorry."

"What do you mean dear, there isn't anything you could do, really nothing that would make me stop loving you."

Ginny hiccupped, "that is only because you don't know yet. I let him. I had sex with him Harry. I wanted to stop it, but it all happened so fast and I just couldn't get him to stop and listen."

Harry's face went from worried to pale white. "Who was it Ginny. Tell me and I'll kill him, I swear it."

"But Harry, you can't." Ginny sobbed. "You can't kill Harry, and even if you could it is going to take all of you to deal with Voldemort. And he still has the elder wand Harry; if you go against him I might lose you."

"Do you mean that the Harry that has the baby did this to you? Merlin, what in the world was I thinking? Whatever past he is carrying with him, this is rape. And of someone he claims to love, it is unfathomable."

Ginny sobbed more loudly. "But that is the worst part Harry, I never told him to stop. I tried to but I never did. I couldn't find a way and then it was over and my traitorous body wanted him to. I just couldn't break away from the heat of the moment. I hate that I cheated on you, and even more I hate that I demanded that you keep my promise last night when you are the one I really want, but failed to do so today when you weren't there to be so tender and thoughtful and wait for me."

"Hush dear, hush." Harry said, pulling her into his arms. We will see this through, you'll see. Joking with her Harry tried to lighten her mood. "Anyway, if you had to cheat on me, I guess it is flattering that at least you chose me to cheat with." Ginny sobbed more loudly still. "Honestly Ginny, I'm not angry. I still love you. Honest I do."

"Listen, Ginny, I'm going to be brutally honest with you, okay?"

Ginny nodded, eyes still filled with tears.

"I don't blame you, okay. First of all, I don't blame you for flirting; maybe I'm a little jealous that I wasn't there to be flirted with instead, but if I were in a room full of girls who all looked like you I know I'd be very tempted to flirt with each one of you. And I don't blame you for being torn between your body was telling you and what you thought was right. You said as much to me last night, and I believed you then, so why wouldn't I believe you now?

"No, I blame myself; well the other myself. I know I'm flawed Ginny, but I had hoped I wasn't this flawed. I know deep in my heart that last night it could just as easily have been me who didn't pause to wait for you and I am ashamed and angry with myself for that flaw."

"I love you Ginny, I do. I just don't know how you can love me after having seen how easily I am able to let go of what I know is right to do what I want."

"I… " Harry grimaced. "I almost didn't stop myself last night, Ginny. How can you ever trust me if you know that?"

Ginny put a finger to his lips. "Look at me when I say this Harry. I do trust you. You did not take advantage of me when you had the chance and regardless of how fine a line that decision hung on you took the path you did. If you will still have me then I am yours from now until forever. Yours alone."

She searched his eyes looking for something. "Do you understand me, Mister Potter?"

Harry offered a haggard grin. "I understand you, Ginny."

"Then before you get too carried away blaming the other Harry, remember that you don't know what he knows about me. His Ginny's mother died during the war, and we don't know what she ever might have told him about her promise to her mother, or even if in his world any of the events that led up to that promise ever happened."

"Moreover, he is clearly still grieving his loss. I shouldn't have toyed with him, I didn't intend to toy with him, I was really just trying to comfort him, but I don't think that is how he took it, and I shouldn't have…"

Harry interrupted. "No Ginny, you can't blame yourself. There is no excuse for rape, and whatever you did or didn't do doesn't play in that."

"But I didn't ever tell him no."

"And he didn't stop to ask either," said Harry still smoldering.


	12. Chapter 12: On the Offensive

On the Offensive

The group gathered in the map room to plan out their attack. On one world map pins had been placed identifying every known hideout or hiding place, rumored or discovered by any of the Harrys in their own worlds. "At least one Voldemort is bound to be at the old Gaunt house, and I wouldn't be surprised to find another at the Malfoy mansion," Luna suggested.

"In your world Voldemort regained his first body by using the Philosopher's stone, but that one will likely be the least powerful, and consequently the best hidden," Ginny added. When she caught Harry the father staring at her she reflexively caught her own Harry's hand and pulled him into a closer embrace.

"We all know Voldemort's weaknesses now, agreed? Voldemort is bound to want to finish us off personally so we should be able to easily get into his presence. We'll attack on every front simultaneously so that none of the Voldemorts are able to warn the others. All of you have experience fighting Voldemort and know what he is capable of, and most of you will benefit from using wands made with Fawkes' tail feathers. All but Harry, Claire's daddy, who will be using his elder wand because he thinks it will work better than Priori Incantatem. If any of us are able to get within range we have Basilisk venom knives kindly provided by Hermione from the black estate, and Basilisk venom darts for longer range attacks."

"Are we all in agreement?" Hermione asked.

A chorus of "Voldemort dies!" greeted her question.

"If anyone runs into serious difficulties try to take your portkey back here. The manor elves have been readied to defend the manor should you be followed." Hermione concluded. "Good luck."

Harry attempted to apparate within the grounds of the Gaunt estate, but bounced off of something like a wall. Voldemort clearly was not going to be caught in a surprise attack as they had hoped. No, Voldemort was well-prepared, his defenses well established, and he seemed to know Harry's weaknesses better than Harry did.

Harry dove to the ground as two hexes crossed millimeters above his head. Auror reflexes asserted themselves as he sent a blindingly bright sectum semptra toward one source. In the other direction Harry sent fiendfyre hoping to divert future attack from that direction into an attempt to fight the semi-sentient blaze.

Dodging forward he bounce hard off the warding. "Since when are there ground wards around the Gaunt residence?" Harry wondered.

Ginny peeked into the map room. It was hard waiting for word of the battle, and Ginny was looking for something to distract herself with.

Within the room she found Hermione concentrating. In the center Hermione kneeled tracing over a lace work of interlocking runes with fresh chalk.

"Hermione, what in the world are you doing?" Ginny asked perplexed.

"Oh, hi Ginny. Didn't Harry take you with him?"

"My Harry got top marks on his Aurors practicals. I'm good, but at the rate he goes I'd be more hindrance than help, so I'm waiting for him here."

Hermione bit her lip. "It is a little unusual, but okay I guess. The only other Harry I know who leaves someone behind is the Harry who is a daddy. But then he has been with us almost since the beginning."

"Sorry", said Ginny, "could you explain what you mean a bit better?"

Hermione sighed. "I am preparing for the next summoning. This group really didn't look like it had what it takes to defeat the Voldemorts, but there is always hope. Our best run was our second. It was the first time that daddy Harry joined the group, and we got nearly all of the Voldemorts that time. Six out of seven I think."

"Every time I summon again I try to make my runes a little bit more precise, to get the very best Harrys I can to defeat the dark one. More willing to sacrifice themselves, stronger of mind and body." Hermione smiled up at Ginny. "Now that you are here I guess you can help me out. What am I missing? How do we get a group that will destroy Voldemort for once and all?"

Ginny was horrified. "Do you mean you've done all of this before? But how many times? How many Harrys have you killed," she wailed?

"Oh Ginny, don't be so morbid. If your Harry is that good he will be back for the next wave. My own Harry has been back three times," Hermione added proudly. "I miss him so when he isn't a part of the attack forces."

Ginny felt a hand on her back. She nearly jumped out of her skin as she turned to find Harry gazing at her. "Hello Ginny, my love." Then he turned to Hermione. "It was a rout, just as I predicted. This was not a good run through, Hermione. We need Harrys who are not afraid to go on the offensive, ones who are not afraid to take whatever they need to win. I can't be the only Harry in the multiverse who saw the potential uses for the elder wand. See to it that we have more next time."

Then he turned to Ginny. "Come my queen. Let me worship you as you deserve." Harry took Ginny's hand and turned to leave with her, even as Ginny's blood froze. "I can't. My Harry will be back for me, I know he will."

"Not a problem, I have all the time in the world." Harry replied.


	13. Chapter 13: From Bad To Worse

_Author's Note: Some readers seem to think that I am being really unkind to Ginny in this chapter. Why does she stay with Harry if he is so evil? Why is Harry evil in the first place? When I was writing this chapter I wasn't really thinking of Harry as evil at all; Ginny's statements to that effect are really just meant to be the beginning of the process of separating herself from him. When Harry-A disappeared in Chapter 12, she didn't stop loving him, and she knows that the Harry-B she is left with is still Harry and can't stop loving him just because he behaves somewhat callously toward her. Still, over the course of months of failed attempts to kill Voldemort she is growing weary of the disparity in their relationship and wants to detach. Ginny has lost touch with him in the vulnerable and open way he had, and is falling out of love._

_Why does Ginny continue to sleep with him at all if she promised herself and her preferred Harry that she wouldn't? Harry-B answered that himself: "I don't care about your world, your Harry, ..." This is what he asks from her, and it is the only thing she has to offer. Does she like herself for it? No, of course not, but not because of the promise which has dropped in importance in her mind, but because of the nature of their relationship, which no longer offers any kind of parity for her. She has grown enough to realize that being someone's isn't enough for her, she needs him to be hers as well, and in a more meaningful and connected way than simple sex._

_I was also thinking in terms of a critique of the recurrent trend, now popularized in the gangster culture treatment of "Ho's", that be sexually objectified is all very exciting until you try to have a relationship with the person doing the objectification. Harry-B states that he wants Ginny to be his goddess, very romantic, but how deep does that feeling really go?  
_

From Bad To Worse

* * *

"Insanity," Ginny thought to herself "is doing the same thing over and over and expecting the results to be different." She had been in the house now for ten runs in as many weeks. Each time Hermione cast the summoning charm Ginny hoped to see her own Harry again. Hermione had explained to her that death was just another dimension as far as the summoning was concerned. Once the summoning was cast some Harry somewhere would apparate into the Black estate, and from there be sucked into this madness.

Sixty three Harrys had met their demise, and still Hermione tinkered with the runes she cast. Every week a fresh set of Harrys were sent to the slaughter, and every night Harry the daddy returned. Under his forceful presence her body became his temple and Harry gave her his devotions every night, but Ginny saw no means of escaping the trap she found herself in. She had grown to hate this callous caricature of her own Harry. He said worship, but really he took her whether she will or no, and his form of worship was pagan.

Ginny buried her head in her hands as the bath filled around her. Somewhere out there, there must be a happy Ginny, she thought to herself. A Ginny who doesn't have to watch this daily slaughter, and who doesn't have to be loved so coldly. She hugged her knees to her body and shivered into the hot bathwater.

"Hermione," Ginny called softly. "Are you still awake?"

Ginny was sore. Something had gone badly wrong today and Harry had come back in a foul temper, demanding that Ginny accompany him immediately, and he remained unsatisfied with her until she was bruised and sore from his attention.

As soon as he was asleep Ginny had crept away to sleep with Hermione as she had become accustomed.

"I think Harry is evil." Ginny whispered.

Hermione shook her head. "No, he is just the only one who is strong enough to come back. We need to find more like him somehow, but I can't figure out what I need to do to get more like him."

"Hermione, there is another way." Ginny persisted. "Even if you are getting progressively more deadly Harrys, that isn't the way to defeat Voldemort. The key to defeating Voldemort is the power that he knows not, the power of love."

Hermione shook her head. "What do you want Harry to do, love Voldemort to death?"

"Think about it!" Ginny insisted. "You said yourself that the second try was the most effective. Since then the results have gotten progressively worse. I think you are optimizing on the wrong axis. And I'm not even sure that this Harry is really trying any longer. I think he sabotages the fight so that he can come home safely to his daughter." Then Ginny choked, "and now to me."

"But he loves you both," Hermione admonished.

"Maybe so. But if it is love that he feels it is a jealous and possessive love that weakens him when he should be strong. My Harry said he would kill him you know. He said there was no excuse…"

Ginny watched as Hermione painstakingly rewrote the second to last rune. Her fingers drummed incessantly at her side waiting for the changes to be completed. A hope was blossoming in her heart, a hope that her own Harry would be among those summoned. That he was one of the richest in the gift of true love.

With a last scratching sound Hermione completed the rune chain again and began to chant.


	14. Chapter 14: Dominance Struggle

_Author's Note: Ginny's Harry comes back from beyond death in this chapter, and confronts his alter ego. With him he brings information critical to stopping Voldemort if anyone will listen to him. Ginny has now seen both sides of Harry; he can be kind and caring but a bit overprotective, or he can be powerful, convinced that he is right, and not particularly interested in listening to Ginny's or anyone else's ideas. She has to choose which one to go to._

_The combat scene between Harry-A and Harry-B probably should be thrown out and rewritten. The intent was to show that within each ego, Harry is attracted to the character traits that he feels makes him strong. My opinion as the author is that flexibility outfights raw strength every time, and so the outcome is fore ordained.  
_

Dominance Struggle

* * *

Ginny felt ever more nervous the closer she came to the tea room. She closed her eyes and rounded the door frame before peeking around the room. "Ginny," Harry cried out as he saw her. "Is it you? He asked rushing to her side."

"I don't know, I'm not sure I even know who I am any more," Ginny whispered into Harry's shoulder. "Are you the Harry that I know?" she asked shyly.

"I don't know either, my love. I've been to the realm where the dead walk the endless bone white plains. I have washed my face and hands in the Styx, but I have not yet crossed into the next realm. I have been hoping and wishing for a way to return."

Ginny pulled him aside. "Tell me what you remember of this house, this place, and of me."

"Ginny, you are the one thing that I couldn't put out of my mind. When I realized that we had been set up to fail the only thing I could think about was that I wouldn't be able to get back to you as I promised. That thought more than any other was what haunted me through my torture and questioning. And if not for the estate wards, I'd have given it all away for just the hope of being able to come back to you."

"They know about this place Ginny. They don't know how to find it, but they have clues, too many clues. The practice of sending wave after wave of Harrys will eventually destroy us."

Ginny pulled Harry to her in a rush of excitement. She couldn't help but feel jubilant to be with her own Harry again. "Come with me, quickly, before the others arrive," she said pulling him toward the upper hallway and into the room where they had spent their first night. "I want to make love to you," Ginny cried. "Just once. Please! Before they send you back out to die again."

Harry looked at her, his concern writ large on his features. "You were not like this when I left Ginny, you are my hopeful side, my optimistic side."

"You don't want me…" she pouted, looking away.

"Of course I want you. But you promised your mother, and you promised yourself. Let me defeat this challenge and I will return to you and take you home, and we'll get married and have kids and leave all of this behind us."

"Harry, I'm not even sure that there is anything left of that me. I have failed miserably without you; I have failed every night to live up to those expectations!" Harry reached to touch her face, to turn her to face him, but in her shame Ginny could not meet Harry's eyes. "Harry, I have broken that promise so many times that I barely remember it any longer."

"Then remember it now." Harry assured her. "Sure, live up to your failures, but to learn from them. Don't let them control you. Make new plans and you can establish a beachhead for how you want to be in the future. Learn from your mistakes and decide who you want to be from here on out." Harry held her by the shoulders as she looked anywhere but at him. "I trust you Ginny, and I believe in you. If you believe in me then you have to believe in yourself too, because I believe in you."

* * *

"We need a new plan!" Harry argued forcefully.

The group were collected once again in the map room, and Hermione was just preparing herself to reveal the runes.

"Hermione, you may as well stop, because I won't be going out there to fight Voldemort until we come up with something better than repeating the same old story."

Harry the father interrupted with menace. "What do you mean you won't fight? I say you will go, even if I have to make you fight myself." Looking aside he ordered, "continue on Hermione while I deal with this coward." As he finished spittle flew from his sneering lips.

"Do you think you can take me then?" asked Ginny's Harry. "Let's see what you have got."

The elder wand twitched and a firebolt was launched toward him, but Harry had already begun apparating. From behind the back of his opponent Harry reached out with his wand and wordlessly cast a full body bind. Turning to locate his enemy, Harry the father snapped up a shield just in the nick of time, stumbling as the leading edge of the spell washed over him.

"Confringo," Ginny's Harry continued, aiming a bolt of destructive fire at the floor beneath his opponent.

At the same time Harry the father cast "Expulso" sending a powerful bolt of destruction outward, his aim failing as he began to plummet through the open floor boards. Overhead the map room ceiling exploded in splinters and fragments of plaster.

"Piertotum Locomotor", Harry fired into the depths of the room beneath. "Glisseo." Falling through the floor Harry had landed badly, his ankle was twisted and possibly broken, and he had just started to stand when the floor turned to ice. All around him armored suits began moving, striding toward him. "Reducio" he snapped. "Reducio. Reducio," sending bolts at the advancing forms.

While his opponent was occupied, Ginny's Harry hovered a book over the hole in the floor and transfigured it into a wasps nest, letting it drop through the hole as soon as the transfiguration was complete. Then into the cavernous hole he case "Petrificus totallus," and heard a satisfying thunk.

Ginny's Harry paused before proceeding. He knew that his opponent relied more on the brute power of his wand than on any sort of finesse. That kind of thinking would get you kicked out of Auror's training, but that didn't mean he wasn't dangerous. Surely he hadn't managed to capture him that quickly. He thought over his training and decided to proceed with caution. "Hominem Revilio" Harry cast into the darkness. There on the floor beneath him was magically outlined the welt covered and magically bound version of himself that he hadn't really expected to defeat so easily.


	15. Chapter 15: To the Victor the Spoils

To The Victor The Spoils

"I really wish that we had some Veritaserum to hand." Harry complained. "I'd really like to know how much of what Voldemort knows is due to him."

Their prisoner struggled in his bonds. "You dare accuse me," he roared? "If you are looking for traitors you should search your own conscience. I may be defeated for now, but I warn you, you will need me before this is through, and when I come back through the veil, I will not be in a very forgiving mood."

"Harry," Ginny begged. "This isn't you. You can't kill him in cold blood, and I won't let you do this for me. I don't want that on my conscience, and I don't think you want to put it there. And as much as it looks like he has betrayed us all think about how circumstantial all of the evidence is."

"Seventy odd missions, close to five hundred deaths, and this Harry," he spat the name, "is the only one to survive all of those? Is he really that good, or did I just defeat him in close combat within a span of five minutes?"

Harry the prisoner scoffed, "trickery and foolishness. I'd have mopped the floor with you if you had fought fairly."

"Harry," Ginny tried again. "Look into your heart and tell me that you have no jealousy toward this man, that you aren't doing this to get even with him over the way he has treated me and I will step aside."

"Do you love him then Ginny," Harry asked. "Do you prefer him over me?"

"No love, I want you. But he is only another side of you. A less forgiving side, an angrier side, perhaps even a more brutal side, but he is you. I want you but i do not want you to kill a part of yourself for me. Or maybe it is just selfish of me, that what I really want is the unblemished you, and I don't really believe that you will be able to keep that inherent goodness if you do this."

Harry sagged. In some part of his mind that wasn't furious with this Harry he knew she was right though it hurt to admit it. "But Ginny, we can't let him run around loose. There is so much damage he can do if you are wrong about him."

"Then send him back home where he can be a daddy and love and raise his little girl."

"Ginny" Harry whispered, "how can you forgive him. How can you find room in your heart for that kind of forgiveness after what he did to you?"

"How did you forgive me?" Ginny asked. "It is the same. I let go of the anger and all that remains is love. You said that I should look ahead at what I want to be, remember it, put a starting mark in the sand and try to move that direction. This is my mark Harry. I want to let it go. I want to be with you and let it go."

Ginny waited a minute before adding. "It is my gift I think; to comfort the damaged ones, to see their redeemable qualities. I'm not asking to be the one who heals him, but I think he deserves a chance at healing. For your sake if not for his."

"For Ginny then," Harry addressed his prisoner. "I will return you to your own time and place but from now on you are nameless to me no longer Harry Potter. No longer anyone."


	16. Chapter 16: Our Worst Fears Come To Pass

Our Worst Fears Come To Pass

"So, um, Hermione. Do you have any idea how to send someone back to where they came from?" Harry asked.

Hermione just looked at Harry dumbfounded. "I can't believe you. Why would you start attacking yourself like that when we have Voldemort to fight?"

Harry considered. "Look Hermione, I feel like I know you well because I know my own Hermione pretty well, so I'll be blunt. You aren't stupid, I know you aren't stupid. What is the definition of insanity?"

Hermione looked at him non-plussed. "Doing the same thing over and…. Do you really think that is what we were doing?"

"Not only do I think so, it is what we we're doing. I died in one of Voldemort's compounds being tortured for every last bit of information I could share about you, and about this house. I am certain that he is looking for the Abraxas gemstone, he asked me the same questions about it over and over again. Where did I hide it? How was it protected? Who knew where it was? Who else would I have considered giving it to? Where would you have hidden it? Voldemort knows about you Hermione, and he has enough clues that he is starting to come up with a plan. We have to stop fooling around and finish him before he finishes us."

"But I was trying. At first it was so close to working, and I was improving…" Hermione tried.

"Can you even begin to imagine what kind of damage Voldemort could do if he had access to this house, these grounds? It would be the wizardry wars all over again, but this time under the control of a mass murdering lunatic. You and my predecessor were stuck in a rut. We need something different, and if there is anywhere to come up with something different this is it."

"Hi Harry," Hermione greeted. "Can I come in?"

"Let's go out instead. Ginny is taking care of baby Claire."

Hermione looked at Harry quizzically.

"We have the nameless one downstairs under guard, until we can devise a way home for him. Not the best place to take care of a baby." Harry explained.

"I don't know why you have to keep calling him nameless. He is obviously still Harry Potter."

"Not to me he isn't." Harry replied. "If I had a good obliviator on call he wouldn't be Harry to himself either."

"I'm passable with obliviation." Hermione pointed out.

"Good point." Harry admitted, "but for now the most important task is to figure out what we do with the Voldemorts."

"Well, you had some pretty good ideas Harry. If we can get access to the runes that define the outside world while remaining within the manor grounds then we can adjust the alleles that define who is a magician so that only you will be able to perform magic. It is risky though to work with the wards that protect the estate; one error and we'll lose the estate or worse."

"The other option is to go outside the wards and try to take a look at Merlin's runes from there. I'm certain I can create a circle and complete the chant without error, but then it could still take days to find a flaw in the runes that we could exploit in order to alter them."

"Both paths carry risks…" Hermione started to elaborate when the pair were interrupted.

"My Lord, Black," Halcyon nodded to Harry. "Death Eaters have found the portal. Three teleported in, two were on the mark, one was splinched, half of him made it, the other half didn't. We were alert my lord, but one managed to get away while we engaged the other."

"Now it is up to you Hermione," Harry cautioned. "Our choices are reduced to just one. If you cannot find a way to adjust the estate wards then you must remove them entirely. Better that we die now than allow all of the realms become Voldemort's playthings."

Harry left her then, breaking into a run before exiting the room. Hermione looked after him and bit her lip worriedly, but proceeded to the map room where her preparations were nearly complete.

Harry continued running through the manor until he found Ginny, "this is it Ginny, we are going to need every bit of skill and luck we possess to pull this off. I want you with Hermione; try to help her with anything she needs. I will try my best to keep us all alive."

After that he ran to the cellar where three Harrys kept the ex-Harry bound and under guard.

"The worst has come to pass," he announced. "Everyone needs to get to the portal to defend it. We can't afford to spare anyone to keep track of one prisoner." Harry lifted his wand, a stunning hex on his lips, then lowered it again. "Come, we'll take him with us. Perhaps he will prove useful in some way."

With a spell Hermione blew away the dust that defined two of the twelve runes that protected the grounds, and paused to consider exactly what she should replace them with to accomplish her goals, while Ginny looked on nervously. With a meticulous hand she began inscribing new chalk markings.


	17. Chapter 17: Battle

Battle

The battle at the portal was going poorly. When the invaders began arriving in quantity the defenders were at first able to dispatch them quickly enough, but as the day drew onward stray bodies had begun to pile up around the portal area providing defensible cover to the Death Eaters. Worse still they were managing to teleport in four at a time now, standing back to back, spells already forming on their lips as they arrived. And if that wasn't bad enough, it was gradually moving toward nightfall.

"Let me go." Ex-Harry yelled again over the mayhem. "I can fight them. Let me go!"

One of them took pity and untied him, handing him a stubby black walnut wand taken from one of their enemy. Ex-Harry immediately sent a blast into the pile of corpses near the portal and cursed, "This damned wand isn't powerful enough." Then he invoked, "Accio elder wand."

"I sure hope he isn't a traitor," Harry called over the din. "Because if I was right, we are now seriously doomed."

Ex-Harry grinned a wolf's grin. "You call me nameless, not worth of my name? Well as I see it my only duty then is to me." He called back. "Lucky for you then that I. Like. Killing. Deatheaters." Brandishing his wand, ex-Harry blasted again into the pile, this time evacuating the transfer portal in a jet of gore that spread out over an area twenty meters behind the portal. Brute force is what the elder wand was made for.

The battle raged for an hour and then two. Night had already fallen when they suffered their first loss. Ex-Harry dodged one blast only to step in to the line of fire of four dark wizards and two undead things Harry couldn't identify. The wizards had been difficult to kill, but the undead things had been instruments of slaughter. By the time they were able to clear the field only Ginny's Harry and three others still stood, all of them pulling ragged breaths.

After that the pounding began. They had no way of telling what was going on outside, but from inside the wards the boundaries of the portal became visible as they bowed under some unseen pressure. The portal became visible again, and before it could correct itself, something pushed at it again causing a deafening drum beat that pressed into their core in a way that seemed to reach inside their ribs fasten onto their hearts with dread.

Harry looked about wide eyed. He was sweating from head to toe, his breathing labored. It was now full dark around them, and he could hear the baying of the hellhounds approaching. Soon they were going to be caught between enemies. Harry summoned his Patronus and spoke to it. "Bring this message to Hermione. This is it, Hermione, if you have anything, you'd better do it now."

The next drum beat never came. No invaders stepped into the portal. It was quiet.

Three, maybe four minutes had passed by. Around Harry nothing moved until one of the two other surviving Harrys asked, "so is that it then?" Out of the darkness a hell hound leapt straight into him killing him before he had a chance to even see what was attacking. Harry threw lightning at the hound but that glanced aside without even hurting it. The other two Harrys had thrown up an emergency shield around the group, just as more of the hellhounds entered the area.

"What in the world do you throw at a hellhound?" Harry wondered. Something occurred to him, though he felt foolish for thinking it, and even more foolish for wasting time on the transformation, but with urgency born of need Harry took a stone from the ground and transformed it into a rabbit. A moment later and the rabbit was tearing away across the vineyard, baying hounds at her heels.

Harry turned in panic; he had forgotten to watch the portal. But there it was still as he had left it. Maybe not exactly the same, if anything the magical fabric of the portal was even more visible, its shape even more bowed.

Just then an otter of flowing moonlight leapt into Harry's arms: "Hermione sends this message. The wards are changed. It is a temporary patch only. Time has been compressed as much as Hermione feels would be wise. A day within the wards that passes will allow Voldemort about a minute and a half of action. Beware the portal. The time gradient may be too steep for any creature to step into and survive." And with that the otter dissolved into the night air.

Harry conferred with his two other selves. "I think we need to set a watch. Even a fraction of a minute might suffice to invade this realm if the Voldemorts succeed in getting an agent in unobserved."

The others concurred and drawing straws they set their night watch. "If the hellhounds return try the trick with the hare again. Actually lets go ahead and transfigure a hare now in case we need to use it as bait." And with that taken care of Harry settled into the still warm earth to rest, too tired even to transfigure a feather pillow to sleep on.


	18. Chapter 18: A New Day

A New Day

As the sun brightened the night sky from deepest blue black to purple and then orange, Harry mulled over their situation. With six hours of sleep under his belt he might not look like a new man, but he certainly felt like one. He cast the Patronus and sent it off in search of Hermione. When it returned a minute later its mission unfulfilled he sent it to find Ginny instead. Her mustang returned a few minutes later with the very succinct message: "We are coming"

Hermione surveyed the area with alarm, before finally spotting the three living Harrys among the grisly scene. "Heavy tolls, but even heavier for Voldemort if seeing is believing."

"What I have implemented so far is only a patch," Hermione explained to the torn and bloodied men. "I changed the wards that protect this place, but the only thing I could think of that I was sure wouldn't do more harm than good was to change the way that time works here. The Voldemorts are still out there and probably still attacking, but our time is now moving about a thousand times faster than his. A day for us will only last about a minute and a half for Voldemort."

Harry looked grim. "Yes, I understood as much from your Patronus . But we can't remain in this state for very long. How is the other part going?"

Hermione looked chastened. "I know it seems as though it has been a long time," she began, worried. "But for rune work like this you would normally spend days looking for every possible unintended side effect. This was really the only thing I could think of that shouldn't have bad side effects, and even with this I may be wrong."

"No Hermione," Harry assured her, "without you we'd all be dead by now. You've done what you could. I am just worried that we won't be able to keep this up for days. You'll have to work faster and do your best to avoid any mistakes you can."

"What about…" Ginny started, then looked down. "What about the baby's father, where is he?"

"I'm sorry Ginny. I misjudged that Harry. In the end he fought as hard as any of us and what he lacked in subtlety he more than made up for in brute strength. He died defending all of us, and flawed as he was if you've forgiven him, how could I not."

"Oh," Ginny sobbed, even as a newfound fierceness entered her face and voice. "Another child orphaned, another innocent made to pay for Voldemort's crimes. Harry, I know you didn't like her father, but I can't send my baby to be raised by strangers; I am going to take her home with me – I want you to be there too, but even if you won't I will not leave my baby to grow up without the love of as much of her family as I can persuade to care for her."

Harry grinned at her. On top of this last day's labors this small family felt more important to Harry than anything else at that moment. "I wouldn't dare get between a mother and her child. If I survive this and we ever make our way home, or at least to some kind of home, I will be yours and you will be mine."

"No, that was glib, and I want to be serious right now." Harry continued, even though Ginny had to work hard to suppress a smile. "We are not innocents in love with the idea of being in love. I know you Ginny, and what I know I admire. You are strong, and good hearted, and forgiving. And even if those weren't true, I love you beyond reason. Please marry me."

"Of course I will marry you," Ginny laughed. "What else have I dreamt about since I was ten?"

"Ok, to be fair, I love you too, even if you are serious sometimes. You will have to help me explain this to mother though, and before you can object, I really want to live with you starting now. Hear me out, I've thought this through and my mother's concerns are hers, my life is mine, and I don't want to waste time away from you when we could be together, learning to know one another better, adapting to one anothers strengths and weaknesses, exploring one another's bodies, minds and souls."

"So don't try to box me in, ok? I've grown from the girl I was when we started dating, and I know what I want. I want you as partner and equal. I love that you want to protect me, but love me for who I am, not for who you think I am."

Ginny growled at him. "Anyway, how could you object to that. Am I not carrying your baby?"

Harry laughed at Ginny's wit, only later wondering exactly how she had meant that.


	19. Chapter 19: Storybook Ending

Storybook Ending

The mopping up was actually anticlimactic. After all the time they had spent worrying about it, Hermione was able to make the adjustments needed to prod at the magic outside the estate wards on the first try. With that kind of access it was almost trivial to rewrite the nature of magic in that world. When Harry finally went to the portal and teleported out to decide how they should proceed it was like taking candy from a baby to track down all of the Voldemort revenants and destroy them. Hermione remained in trance throughout the process to maintain her patch every time Merlin's interdiction runes tried to correct her changes, but from Harry's perspective it was a cakewalk.

Finding any sort of viable remnant of magical Britain's public infrastructure proved harder as he explained to Hermione at length. "The institutions that you remember existing are now Voldemort's through and through. I can't find a single wizard alive who I would trust to sell me a wand much less run a government."

Eventually Hermione decided that what might be best for her world would be to remove magic from it forever. I shall be sad to see it go, but it has brought little happiness and much chaos to our pitiful world. I think that we may be better off without it.

And so Hermione herself wrote the new endcap that she placed on her world's structure. Removing all of the runes from Merlin's all the way back through the hack that allowed magic to work in the first place, Hermione fixed the one flaw in the core runes, and added one new rune of her own that would obliviate anyone who ever started the singing chant of the runes.

Even returning home ended up being easier than Harry had expected. A simple portkey made from memory to his London flat pulled both Harry and Ginny home without any trouble. Well without any more trouble than they were in anyway, but if you want to hear about how Molly fainted when she found out that Harry and Ginny had had a baby out of wedlock, or how the Aurors office questioned Harry for two whole days about his whereabouts for the last six months without ever getting a satisfactory answer those are other tales.

As for Harry and Ginny, they got married at the Burrow as soon as Molly could arrange it (which was very soon indeed), and that is how they became my mum and dad.


End file.
